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Pretty fun on the whole but far from perfect

Eirtakon is an Irish anime convention which has been running from 2005 it usually takes place over the space of a weekend in November, this year it took place from the 14th-16th of November. It takes place in DCU the Dublin City University and is organized by their anime society there was almost over 800 attendees this year,

It began on the Friday night with a pub quiz based on anime during the evening. This was for over eighteens only and no ID no entry. I was the only person in my group who thought of bringing ID sadly so we didn't get to participate.For those who weren't eighteen or over or who forgot their ID on the Friday night there were anime episode showings in one of the rooms upstairs above the venue and University bar. The showings on that night were Death eater and ghost hound with English subtitles. There were also amvs or anime music videos in between each episode, these are fan made movies featuring various clips from peoples favorite anime edited together with a particular or favorite piece of music.

The Saturday started at around 9am -6pm, I was part of the artists ally and was selling nintendo and anime themed phone charms,badges,bracelets,bookmarks and door signs. Once you pay in at 18 euros and pre register a table you can have the table for the whole weekend. The artists ally was downstairs in the same building, the room was called the venue and was like a large basement area with stairs up both sides of the room.

The artists ally is up one side, here people sell fan made sketches and other items to other fans. Facing this wall is a stage, in the middle is a vender selling anime and video game themed plushies,t shirts,wallets and cards.Across another wall there is a manga or Japanese comic book vender from Easons and facing this wall is a vender of anime dvds.

Anime showings go on all day in the room above this on both the saturday and sunday. Such anime shown here are neon genesis evangelion,cowboy bebop, the girl who lept through time, naruto and full metal alchemist. On both days one of the English voice actors from full metal alchemist was also signing autographs, CDs and also did an audio commentary for one of the episodes. Think his name is Vic Magnogia, but not entirely sure since I havnt watched any of the anime he has featured in. He is pretty big in America however and announced at the closing ceremony that Eirtakon was one of the best organized anime conventions he had ever been to.

There were also a few video game tournaments for games like super smash brothers and street fighter, which got high turnouts.

On the Saturday there was a coseplay contest, this is where fans of anime dress up as an anime character and parades around on stage.I participated in this and it was a bit of a nightmare, they had over thirty sweaty teenagers some in leather and plastic all crushed up in the tiny space behind the stage for maybe half an hour before they sent us up. They would need to organize this better next year I think.Some of the staff members running the event where also there voluntarily and had absolutely no idea what was going on half the time when I asked them a question which was also a problem. The venue was also extremely hot and smelled of sweaty young men, I dunno if all geeky conventions smell of BO but it was a bit unpleasant and my clothes stank after the event (am female btw).

On the Sunday things were pretty similar to the Saturday but there was an art and amv contest on, I participated in both, I didnt win anything for the art contest, but took third place in all categories of the amv contest and obtained a prize at the closing ceremony. I thought the judging of the amvs and coseplay was rather biased and was down to favoritism however as the amv contest took no account which video system you used in the making of the amv. For instance windows movie player is very basic but mac movie makers are far superior however not everyone may have access to that system or computer, so the contest was judged slightly unfairly.As for the coseplay contest no girls were winners only guys and they were all video game characters, I thought this a little odd considering it was an anime convention and not a video game convention. Perhaps next year they should have a girls category and a boys category instead but again I feel the judging was rather biased.I did make a lot of friends however as hugging seems to be quite a common theme at conventions such as this and the other people working on the artists ally were very nice. I even obtained a boyfriend out of the experience which is awesome.Overall I would probably give it a 7/10 though as although it was good fun communication skills were bad and the judges for the contests were very biased.